Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!"
19. And Anarchy the skeleton
Bowed and grinned to every one
As well as if his education

Had cost ten millions to the nation.

20. For he knew the palaces

Of our kings were nightly his;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the gold-inwoven robe.

21. So he sent his slaves before

To seize upon the Bank and Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned parliament,
22. When one fled past, a maniac maid,
And her name was Hope, she said,
But she looked more like Despair;
And she cried out in the air:

23. "My father Time is weak and grey
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!

24. "He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me--
Misery! oh Misery!"

25. Then she lay down in the street
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting with a patient eye
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy :-

26. When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, an image rose,
Small at first, and weak and frail
Like the vapour of the vale:

27. Till, as clouds grow on the blast

Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly.
And speak in thunder to the sky,

28. It grew a shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was like the light of sunny rain.

29. On its helm seen far away

A planet like the morning's lay;

And those plumes its light rained through,
Like a shower of crimson dew.

30. With step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men: so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked-and all was empty air,

31. As flowers beneath May's footsteps waken, As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken, As waves arise when loud winds call, Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall. 32. And the prostrate multitude

Looked-and, ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien;

33. And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The horse of Death, tameless as wind,
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.
34. A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender,
Was heard and felt--and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose ;
35. As if their own indignant Earth,
Which gave the sons of England birth,
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And, shuddering with a mother's throe,
36. Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To an accent unwithstood,

As if her heart had cried aloud.

37. "Men of England, heirs of glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,

Nurslings of one mighty mother,
Hopes of her and one another!

38. "Rise, like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number!

Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you!

39. What is Freedom? Ye can tell
That which Slavery is too well,
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.

40. "Tis to work, and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs as in a cell

For the tyrants' use to dwell:

41. "So that ye for them are made
Loom and plough and sword and spade;
With or without your own will, bent
To their defence and nourishment.

42. "'Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak
When the winter winds are bleak :-
They are dying whilst I speak.
43. "Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye.

44. "Tis to let the ghost of Gold
Take from toil a thousandfold

47.

And, at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain,

'Tis to see the tyrant's crew

Ride over your wives and you :

Blood is on the grass like dew!

48. "Then it is to feel revenge,

Fiercely thirsting to exchange

Blood for blood, and wrong for wrong:
Do not thus when ye are strong!

49. "Birds find rest in narrow nest,
When weary of their wingèd quest;
Beasts find fare in woody lair

52. "This is Slavery!-Savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den,
Would endure not as ye do:
But such ills they never knew.

53. "What art thou, Freedom? Oh! could slaves Answer from their living graves

This demand, tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery.

54. "Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.

55. "For the labourer, thou art bread
And a comely table spread,
From his daily labour come,
In a neat and happy home.

56. "Thou art clothes and fire and food
For the trampled multitude.
No-in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see !

57. "To the rich thou art a check;
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.

58. "Thou art justice: ne'er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England; thou
Shield'st alike the high and low.

59.

"Thou art wisdom: freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which priests make such ado.

60. "Thou art peace: never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.
61. "What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth even as a flood?
It availed, O Liberty,

To dim-but not extinguish thee.

62. "Thou art love: the rich have kissed Thy feet, and, like him following Christ, Given their substance to the free,

And through the rough world followed thee.

63. "Oh! turn their wealth to arms, and make War, for thy beloved sake,

On wealth and war and fraud; whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.

64. "Science, and poetry, and thought,
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot

Such they curse their Maker not,

65. "Spirit, patience, gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless,

Art thou. Let deeds, not words, express
Thine exceeding loveliness.

66. "Let a great assembly be

Of the fearless and the free

On some spot of English ground

Where the plains stretch wide around.

67. "Let the blue sky overhead,

The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be,
Witness the solemnity.

68. "From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town,
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others' misery or their own;

69. "From the workhouse and the prison
Where, pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old,
Groan for pain, and weep for cold;

70. "From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife

With common wants and common cares
Which sow the human heart with tares;

71. "Lastly, from the palaces

Where the murmur of distress
Echoes like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around-

72. "Those prison-halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion,
For those who groan and toil and wail,
As must make their brethren pale ;—

73. "Ye who suffer woes untold

Or to feel or to behold

Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold!